DOCSLIB.ORG

Neural Correlates of Eureka Moment

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Neural Correlates of Eureka Moment Intelligence 62 (2017) 99–118 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Intelligence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/intell Neural correlates of Eureka moment Giulia Sprugnoli a, Simone Rossi a, Alexandra Emmendorfer b, Alessandro Rossi a, Sook-Lei Liew c, Elisa Tatti a, Giorgio di Lorenzo e,f, Alvaro Pascual-Leone b, Emiliano Santarnecchi a,b,d,⁎ a Brain Investigation & Neuromodulation Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Surgery and Neuroscience, University of Siena, Siena 53100, Italy b Berenson-Allen Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation and Division of Cognitive Neurology, Beth Israel Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02120, USA c Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA d Center for Complex System Study, Engineering and Mathematics Department, University of Siena, Siena 53100, Italy e Laboratory of Psychophysiology, Chair of Psychiatry, Department of Systems Medicine, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy f Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology Unit, Department of Neurosciences, Fondazione Policlinico “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy article info abstract Article history: Insight processes that peak in “unpredictable moments of exceptional thinking” are often referred to as Aha! or Received 9 September 2016 Eureka moments. During insight, connections between previously unrelated concepts are made and new pat- Received in revised form 5 March 2017 terns arise at the perceptual level while new solutions to apparently insolvable problems suddenly emerge to Accepted 5 March 2017 consciousness. Given its unpredictable nature, the definition, and behavioral and neurophysiological measure- Available online 28 March 2017 ment of insight problem solving represent a major challenge in contemporary cognitive neuroscience. Numerous Keywords: attempts have been made, yet results show limited consistency across experimental approaches. Here we pro- Insight vide a comprehensive overview of available neuroscience of insight, including: i) a discussion about the theoret- Eureka ical definition of insight and an overview of the most widely accepted theoretical models, including those Aha debating its relationship with creativity and intelligence; ii) an overview of available tasks used to investigate in- Cognition sight; iii) an ad-hoc quantitative meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies investigating fMRI the Eureka moment, using activation likelihood estimation maps; iv) a review of electroencephalographic evi- EEG dence in the time and frequency domains, as well as v) an overview of the application of non-invasive brain stim- ERPs ulation techniques to causally assess the neurobiological basis of insight as well as enhance insight-related Non-invasive brain stimulation cognition. Neuroenhancement NIBS © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Creativity Contents 1. Introduction.............................................................. 100 2. Defining the topic: definitions,theories,andtasks............................................. 100 2.1. Aninsightintoinsight...................................................... 100 2.2. Definingprocesses........................................................ 101 2.3. Insightorinsights?........................................................ 102 2.4. Insighttasks........................................................... 102 2.5. Creativityandinsight....................................................... 103 2.6. Multifactorial nature of Aha!:intelligence,memory,attention,mood,cognitivecontrolandsleep.................... 103 2.6.1. Intelligenceandmemory................................................. 104 2.6.2. Attention........................................................ 104 2.6.3. Mood.......................................................... 104 2.6.4. Sleepandcognitivecontrol................................................ 104 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Berenson-Allen Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation and Division of Cognitive Neurology, Beth Israel Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Sprugnoli), [email protected] (S. Rossi), [email protected] (A. Emmendorfer), [email protected] (A. Rossi), [email protected] (S.-L. Liew), [email protected] (E. Tatti), [email protected] (G. di Lorenzo), [email protected] (A. Pascual-Leone), [email protected] (E. Santarnecchi). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.03.004 0160-2896/© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 100 G. Sprugnoli et al. / Intelligence 62 (2017) 99–118 2.7. Overviewofneurophysiologicalevidenceaboutinsightprocesses................................... 104 3. Methods................................................................ 104 3.1. Literaturesearch......................................................... 104 3.2. fMRIstudies........................................................... 106 3.2.1. ComputationoftheALEmeta-analysismaps........................................ 106 3.3. EEGstudies........................................................... 106 3.4. Non-invasivebrainstimulationstudies............................................... 107 4. Results................................................................. 107 4.1. Insight-relatedfMRIactivations.................................................. 107 4.2. Insight-relatedERPs....................................................... 108 4.3. Brainoscillationsduringinsight.................................................. 109 4.4. Brainoscillationsduringmentalpreparationandresting-stateactivity................................. 111 4.5. NiBSandinsight......................................................... 111 5. Discussion............................................................... 112 5.1. Theinsightnetwork....................................................... 112 5.2. The timing of an insightful solution: event-related potentials during Eureka! .............................. 113 5.2.1. Negativepotentialsaround400ms............................................. 113 5.2.2. Laternegativecomponents................................................ 113 5.2.3. Positivecomponentsaround300ms............................................ 114 5.2.4. Laterpositivecomponents................................................ 114 5.3. Hemisphericasymmetryandinsightfulprocessing.......................................... 114 5.4. Electricsignaturesofaninsightfulmind.............................................. 114 5.5. InsightandNiBS......................................................... 115 5.6. Caveatsandfuturedirections................................................... 115 6. Conclusion............................................................... 115 Financialdisclosures............................................................. 116 Acknowledgements............................................................. 116 AppendixA. Supplementarydata...................................................... 116 References.................................................................. 116 1. Introduction principle of displacement while taking a bath, reportedly ran naked down the street shouting “Eureka!”. This funny anecdote highlights Although research on insight processes began over a century ago the unpredicted, unfettered nature of Aha! moments, thought of as “a with Köhler's observations on the problem-solving abilities of chimpan- special gift of Muses” by the Greek. While solid theory has been pro- zees (Kohler, 1925), a comprehensive definition of “insight processes” posed for the biological network of intelligence (Jung & Haier, 2007), remains elusive. During the last twenty years, several theories have valid scientific explanations are largely lacking for insight. This leaves been proposed to explain the insight phenomenon. Over the past de- the Eureka moment as one of the most intriguing and unexplained pro- cade, experimental support for some of these theories has been gathered cesses of the human mind (Sternberg & Davidson, 1995), despite many thanks to recent advances in neuroimaging and neurophysiological relevant correlations with fluid intelligence (Paulewicz, Chudersky, & techniques. In the present review, we provide a comprehensive summa- Necka, 2007; Sternberg & Davidson, 1995), switching ability and work- ry of the neuroscience of insight. We first provide an overview of the ingmemory(WM)capacity(Murray & Byrne, 2005). It was not until the most relevant theoretical definitions and the most commonly used beginning of the 20th century that Gestalt psychologists attempted to tools for the investigation of insight moments. Second, we present orig- create a proper definition of insight (Dietrich & Kanso, 2010), describing inal results from a quantitative meta-analysis of available functional it as “a process based on reconstructing the core of a problem, rethink- magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, as well as a summary of the ing its basic assumptions and originating a new and creative solution, a evidence collected with electroencephalography (EEG), focusing on process usually occurring in an unexpected and unpredictable manner” brain oscillations and event-related analysis. Third, we critically discuss (Kohler, 1925). emerging evidence from perturbation-based and neuromodulatory ap- To better characterize the Aha! moment, a valid heuristic approach proaches, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) might
Load more

Recommended publications
  • S Value System
    NeuroImage 221 (2020) 117143 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect NeuroImage journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neuroimage Object recognition is enabled by an experience-dependent appraisal of visual features in the brain’s value system Vladimir V. Kozunov a,*, Timothy O. West b,c, Anastasia Y. Nikolaeva a, Tatiana A. Stroganova a, Karl J. Friston c a MEG Centre, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Moscow, 29 Sretenka, Russia b Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK c Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, 12 Queen Square, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: This paper addresses perceptual synthesis by comparing responses evoked by visual stimuli before and after they Visual perception are recognized, depending on prior exposure. Using magnetoencephalography, we analyzed distributed patterns Object recognition of neuronal activity – evoked by Mooney figures – before and after they were recognized as meaningful objects. Mooney figure disambiguation Recognition induced changes were first seen at 100–120 ms, for both faces and tools. These early effects – in right Magnetoencephalography inferior and middle occipital regions – were characterized by an increase in power in the absence of any changes Value system – Prior experience in spatial patterns of activity. Within a later 210 230 ms window, a quite different type of recognition effect Predictive coding appeared. Regions of the brain’s value system (insula, entorhinal cortex and cingulate of the right hemisphere for Region-based multivariate pattern analysis faces and right orbitofrontal cortex for tools) evinced a reorganization of their neuronal activity without an Representational similarity analysis overall power increase in the region.
    [Show full text]
  • Early Stimulation of the Left Posterior Parietal Cortex Promotes
    www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Early stimulation of the left posterior parietal cortex promotes representation change in problem solving Ursula Debarnot1*, Sophie Schlatter1, Julien Monteil1 & Aymeric Guillot1,2 When you suddenly understand how to solve a problem through an original and efcient strategy, you experience the so-called “Eureka” efect. The appearance of insight usually occurs after setting the problem aside for a brief period of time (i.e. incubation), thereby promoting unconscious and novel associations on problem-related representations leading to a new and efcient solving strategy. The left posterior parietal cortex (lPPC) has been showed to support insight in problem solving, when this region is activated during the initial representations of the task. The PPC is further activated during the next incubation period when the mind starts to wander. The aim of this study was to investigate whether stimulating the lPPC, either during the initial training on the problem or the incubation period, might enhance representation change in problem solving. To address this question, participants performed the Number Reduction Task (NRT, convergent problem-solving), while excitatory or sham (placebo) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was applied over the lPPC. The stimulation was delivered either during the initial problem representation or during the subsequent incubation period. Impressively, almost all participants (94%) with excitatory tDCS during the initial training gained representational change in problem solving, compared to only 39% in the incubation period and 33% in the sham groups. We conclude that the lPPC plays a role during the initial problem representation, which may be considerably strengthened by means of short brain stimulation.
    [Show full text]
  • Direct Current Stimulation of Right Anterior Superior Temporal Gyrus
    i Direct Current Stimulation of Right Anterior Superior Temporal Gyrus During Solution of Compound Remote Associates Problems A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Drexel University by Joseph Jason van Steenburgh in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology May 2011 Direct current stimulation of rASTG for insight ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I offer my sincerest thanks to Drs. John Kounios and Mark Beeman, whose excellent work in the field of insight inspired this project. Dr. Kounios has been an invaluable source of information, assistance and advice throughout my time at Drexel and without Dr. Beeman’s problem set, my participants would have been a lot less excited about coming back for more! I’d also like to thank Dr. Schultheis for all her assistance in helping me draft the rationale for the project, and Dr. Spiers for her time, advice and encouragement. Dr. Hamilton, thank you so much for helping me to explore the wonderful world of brain stimulation—your knowledge, enthusiasm and expertise continue to inspire me. I am so grateful to you for sharing the wonderful resources of the University of Pennsylvania’s Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation. I also could not have done this without the diligent and thorough efforts of Jacques Beauvais and Samuel Messing, who both worked hard to help recruit and run the participants who graciously allowed us to try to change their minds. I’d also like to thank my parents and family for their encouragement and faith that I could do it—despite my propensity to sometimes bite off a bit more than I can chew.
    [Show full text]
  • The Neural Substrate of the Eureka Effect
    Aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung in Frankfurt am Main The Neural Substrate of the Eureka Effect vom Fachbereich Biologie der Technischen Universität Darmstadt zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat) Dissertation von Yiqing Lu aus Zhejiang, China 1. Referent: Prof. Dr. Ralf Galuske 2. Referent: Prof. Dr. Bodo Laube 3. Referent: Prof. Dr. Wolf Singer Darmstadt 2018 Yiqing Lu: The Neural Substrate of the Eureka Effect Darmstadt, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Jahr der Veröffentlichung der Dissertation auf TUprints: 2018 URN: urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-82185 Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 16.11.2018 Veröffentlicht unter CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Summary The Eureka effect, also known as Aha effect, insight or epiphany, refers to the common experience of suddenly solving a problem. Here we study this effect in a pattern recognition paradigm that requires the segmentation of complex scenes and recognition of objects on the basis of Gestalt rules and prior knowledge. In the experiments both sensory evidence and prior knowledge were manipulated in order to obtain trials that do or do not converge towards a perceptual solution. Subjects had to detect objects in blurred scenes and signal recognition with manual responses. Neural dynamics were analysed with high density Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. We determined changes in spectral distribution, coherence, phase locking and fractal dimension. The Eureka effect was associated with increased coherent oscillations in the alpha and theta band over widely distributed regions of the cortical mantle predominantly in the right hemisphere. This increase in coherence was associated with a decrease of beta band activity over parietal and central regions, and with a decrease of alpha band activity over frontal and occipital areas.
    [Show full text]
  • Association Between Pupil Dilation and Implicit Processing Prior To
    www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Association between pupil dilation and implicit processing prior to object recognition via insight Received: 4 December 2017 Yuta Suzuki1, Tetsuto Minami 1,2 & Shigeki Nakauchi1 Accepted: 17 April 2018 Insight refers to the sudden conscious shift in the perception of a situation following a period of Published: xx xx xxxx unconscious processing. The present study aimed to investigate the implicit neural mechanisms underlying insight-based recognition, and to determine the association between these mechanisms and the extent of pupil dilation. Participants were presented with ambiguous, transforming images comprised of dots, following which they were asked to state whether they recognized the object and their level of confdence in this statement. Changes in pupil dilation were not only characterized by the recognition state into the ambiguous object but were also associated with prior awareness of object recognition, regardless of meta-cognitive confdence. Our fndings indicate that pupil dilation may represent the level of implicit integration between memory and visual processing, despite the lack of object awareness, and that this association may involve noradrenergic activity within the locus coeruleus-noradrenergic (LC-NA) system. When we recognize objects in daily life, our brains process the relevant visual information, regardless of whether we are conscious of this process. In particular, sudden insight—which refers to an instantaneous shif in compre- hension during the perception of a stimulus, situation, event, or problem following a period of unconscious pro- cessing—allows us to obtain a new interpretation of our current situation, resulting in what is known as an “aha! moment” or the “eureka efect”.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Has Insights? the Who, Where, and When of the Eureka Moment
    School of Psychology Who has insights? The who, where, and when of the Eureka moment Linda Alice Ovington Bachelor of Arts (Honours 1) School of Psychology, Charles Sturt University A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology) at Charles Sturt University in December, 2016 i Table of contents List of tables vi List of figures vii Certificate of original authorship viii Acknowledgments ix Statement of contributions to jointly authored works contained in this thesis and published works by the author contained in this thesis xi Work published by the author and incorporated into the thesis xi Professional editorial assistance xii Preface xiii Ethics approval xv List of abbreviations xvii Abstract xx Introduction: Individual differences in insight and challenges with measurement 1 Chapter overview 2 Introduction 3 What is problem solving? 3 What is insight problem solving, and why is it different to other forms of problem solving? 5 The challenges with insight problems 7 1.5.1 Why insight should be seen through the lens of individual differences 10 1.5.2 Predictors of insight and the people who have them 12 Problem statement 16 Aim and scope 19 Key terms 21 Significance of the study 22 Research question 23 Overview of the thesis 23 Individual differences in insight problem solving: A review 26 Chapter overview 27 Introduction 28 Scope of the review 30 Defining insight 31 Preceding events: Insight versus analysis 32 2.5.1 Fixation, mental ruts, and experience as an impediment to problem solving 33 ii 2.5.2 Impasse 36
    [Show full text]
  • Maximising Creativity - Happiness, Play and Creativity Research: Getting Into the Flow and How It Helps Us in Dragon Dreaming Projects
    FACTSHEET No #25 MAXIMISING CREATIVITY - HAPPINESS, PLAY AND CREATIVITY RESEARCH: GETTING INTO THE FLOW AND HOW IT HELPS US IN DRAGON DREAMING PROJECTS John Croft 10th September 2014 This Factsheet by John Croft is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at [email protected]. ABSTRACT: If we are going to be successful in building a new win-win-win culture for the Great Turning, away from the win-lose games we have been playing for thousands of years we need to maximise creativity on a scale never before attempted. This article sets the creative process in a larger context using Dragon Dreaming as a metamodel for understanding the nature of play and creativity. Table of Contents THE CURRENT SITUATION ............................................................................................. 2 THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS .................................................................................... 6 THE NATURE OF PLAY ................................................................................................ 7 CREATIVITY AND THE AHA EXPERIENCE .............................................................. 9 FRAMEWORK FOR MAXIMISING CREATIVITY ..................................................... 11 DREAMING ................................................................................................................... 14 PLANNING ...................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Dynamic Signatures of the Eureka Effect: an EEG Study
    bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.27.433162; this version posted March 1, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Dynamic signatures of the Eureka effect: An EEG study Yiqing Lu a, b, c, d * and Wolf Singer a, b, c a Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in Cooperation with Max Planck Society, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany b Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany c Department of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany d Department of Biology, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract The Eureka effect refers to the common experience of suddenly solving a problem. Here we study this effect in a pattern recognition paradigm that requires the segmentation of complex scenes and recognition of objects on the basis of Gestalt rules and prior knowledge. In the experiments both sensory evidence and prior knowledge were manipulated in order to obtain trials that do or do not converge towards a perceptual solution. Subjects had to detect objects in blurred scenes and signal recognition with manual responses. Neural dynamics were analyzed with high-density Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. The results show significant changes of neural dynamics with respect to spectral distribution, coherence, phase locking, and fractal dimensionality. The Eureka effect was associated with increased coherence of oscillations in the alpha and theta band over widely distributed regions of the cortical mantle predominantly in the right hemisphere.
    [Show full text]
  • The Behavioral and Neural Basis for the Facilitation of Insight Problem
    NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY The Behavioral and Neural Basis for the facilitation of Insight Problem-Solving by a Positive Mood A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY FIELD OF NEUROSCIENCE (Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program) By Karuna Subramaniam EVANSTON, ILLINOIS December 2008 2 © Copyright by Karuna Subramaniam 2008 All Rights Reserved 3 ABSTRACT The Behavioral and Neural Basis for the facilitation of Insight Problem- Solving by a Positive Mood Karuna Subramaniam Previous research has shown that creative insight problem-solving is distinct from systematic analytical problem-solving. Behaviorally, a positive mood has shown to facilitate insights but without knowing the processes that are fundamental to insight, the mechanisms as to how a positive mood facilitates insights have remained unspecified. Here, we investigate the neural basis of how a positive mood facilitates insight-solving. We assessed mood/personality variables in 79 participants before they tackled word problems that can either be solved with insight or analytically. Participants higher in positive mood solved more problems, and specifically more with insight, compared to participants lower in positive mood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed on 27 of the participants while they solved problems. Positive mood correlated with preparatory brain activity within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that preceded each solved problem. Modulation of this preparatory activity in ACC biased people to solve either with insight or analytically. Analyses examined whether (a) positive mood modulated activity in brain areas showing increased preparatory signal; (b) positive mood modulated activity in areas showing stronger activity for insight solutions than analytical solutions and (c) insight effects occurred in areas that showed a positive mood-related preparatory effect.
    [Show full text]
  • Empathy in Film Thesis
    THE WORDS THAT MAKE PICTURES MOVE An implicit theory of viewer empathy in the tacit knowledge of expert screenwriters Steven Vidler April 2015 This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media and Communication. Faculty of Arts, Department of Media, Music, Communications and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney. Contents ABSTRACT: i STATEMENT OF CANDIDATE: ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: iii CHAPTER 1: FADE IN 1 Background, aims and approach of this research. CHAPTER 2: SCHMUCKS WITH MACBOOKS 15 Why consider the tacit knowledge of expert screenwriters? CHAPTER 3: CIGARETTE BUTTS, CHEWING GUM WRAPPERS & TEARS Expert screenwriters’ conceptions of viewer empathy. Introduction to interviews 48 Simon Beaufoy 51 Laurence Coriat 75 Jean-Claude Carriere 89 Guillermo Arriaga 107 CHAPTER 4: DEUS NOT-SO-ABSCONDITUS 120 Expert screenwriters’ implicit model of viewer empathy. CHAPTER 5: MIND, THE GAP 134 Cognitive theorists’ models of viewer empathy: A screenwriter’s perspective. CHAPTER 6: INSIDE THE RUSSIAN DOLL 169 Cognitive neuroscientists’ models of empathy: A screenwriter’s perspective. CHAPTER 7: THE VIEWER WITH THREE BRAINS 227 Expert screenwriters’ narrative strategies for creating and modulating viewer empathy. CHAPTER 8: FADE OUT 263 Results and conclusions. REFERENCES 272 APPENDIX - ETHICS APPROVAL 307 ENDNOTES 309 i Abstract Screenwriting is under-represented in film theory. Screenwriters conceive of their practice as deliberately communicating, through the medium of film, a coherent set of thoughts and feelings to a discriminating viewer, in order to move them emotionally and intellectually to accept an intended meaning. Thus expert screenwriters are those who consistently demonstrate, through the effective application of narrative forms and devices, their understanding of how we understand film.
    [Show full text]